25 July 1999
Mike Tueller
The manual suggested a very traditional lesson for this week, one which focused on Jesus's words on the cross. Today, however, I'm going to focus on material that I think gets less attention. I'm doing this for two reasons. First, Jesus's crucifixion is a story we've probably all heard innumerable times, so the significant details are already ingrained. Second, the moral lesson of the crucifixion is one we've already dealt with, last week, when we talked about the atonement. And, finally, there is some really interesting material on two of the secondary characters in this story--Peter and Pilate. So I want to take them on, and see what we can learn from their actions in this story.
Let's start with Peter in the Garden of Gethsemane, which takes us back several weeks in our reading (but only a few hours in the story).
Read Mark 14:27-31.
Now, for the moment, let's try to forget what's going to happen later, and put ourselves in Peter's shoes. What's going on in his mind? (There seems no reason to doubt that Peter's commitment was sincere. He really was ready to give everything for his Lord.)
In not too much time, Jesus is betrayed. Jesus meekly accepts His fate, but Peter sees the need for action. Let's look at two different accounts.
Read Luke 22:49-51.
What's great about this passage is that the unnamed person (who, we'll find out from John, was Peter) asks if he should strike, but then doesn't wait for an answer: he strikes anyway. Now for the account in John:
Read John 18:10-11.
How would you describe Peter at this point in the story? (To me, he seems as zealous and impetuous as ever. He's always ready and eager on his master's side, but not always taking directions.)
Peter, it seems, really is ready to do anything for Jesus--even more than Jesus wants.
Jesus, we know, is led away. Let's continue our focus on Peter. Remember, the first thing Jesus had predicted about him and the other disciples is that they would scatter. Peter told Jesus he wouldn't. Does he keep his promise? The next few verses will show.
Read Luke 22:54-55.
Peter remains loyal. There's nothing he can do--at least, nothing Jesus would let him do--but he still sticks around.
Before we get to the climax of this episode, let's try to characterize how Peter feels. Can anyone describe his situation and what he likely thinks about it? (Write answers on the board; some possibilities are listed below.)
 | His Master, who he thought would be victorious, is going down to defeat.
| He is alone, and no-one is there to reassure him.
| Is his own place in the work still secure?
| He is far from home, in a very strange place.
| Jerusalem is a big city, with many dignified institutions: he is a fisherman from Galilee.
| He has only gotten a few small catnaps all night, and he is very, very tired.
| He is cold.
| The whole Passover season this year hasn't been everything it's cracked up to be.
| |
Admittedly, many of the thoughts I've put in Peter's head here are of no great moment, but Peter was a human, and it seems to me that there's nothing more natural and human than, when we're part of a cause that seems to be going down to defeat, and we're alone and lonely, to feel sorry for ourselves, in a manner that is decidedly unheroic.
It is in this situation that he is tested.
Read Luke 22:56-62.
Why would Peter deny? (I'm interested in anything anyone has to say; my own guesses follow.)
On one level, Peter's decision to deny was a momentary one: he was suddenly hit with an unexpected question, and his first thought was that no good would come of admitting he was with Jesus. One denial, of course, led to others, as the first instinct of every person seems always to be to give a consistent story.
It's quite possible, however, that Peter's momentary thought led to even deeper problems. After all, denying was easy and advantageous: he could continue to deny for the rest of his life, and pretend that the time he'd spent with Jesus either never happened or was just a momentary aberration. Maybe this kind of thinking wouldn't bring the restoration of all things, but it would at least restore the world as he knew it, a place that was comfortable enough before Jesus came, said "Follow me," and turned everything upside-down.
Peter, it seems, is caught between the behavior he knows is right and the behavior that most easily fits the situation: when accused, deny. The problem is essentially one of role-playing. When he was with Jesus, he was playing the role of disciple. Now he's just a guy by the fire: why shouldn't he play that role? At at time of great uncertainty, Peter probably doubts, not only Jesus, but himself--did he really follow this Man for so long? Who's to say the rest of the world isn't right, while Jesus is wrong?
Well, Jesus will be the one to say--on Peter's third denial, Jesus's look catches him, and he realizes that his life choices aren't just a matter of choosing between masks: there is a very clear reality, and it has just come crashing down on him. He runs away and weeps.
Let's think about playing roles as we go on to our next character, Pilate.
Let me start by giving you some background on Pilate. You don't get much background on him in the gospels, because he plays such a minor role. However, there are a few things you should know that may help you understand his character.
First, a little about Judea. The prefecture of Judea was created in A.D. 6, after Herod's son Archelaus was deposed for incompetence. Now, the normal way of incorporating an area into the Roman empire was to make it a province, governed by a legate who was appointed either by the Roman senate or by the emperor himself. Judea was too small to be a province, but the Romans recognized that every time Judea had been attached to some other area (either Egypt to the south or Syria to the north) there had been cultural problems. (There were also some political difficulties with attaching it either to Syria or to Egypt at the time.) So Judea was given an anomalous status: it was governed by a lower official, known as a "prefect," who did not have a full legion. While the prefect had the usual wide-ranging powers to govern, he would have to call on the legate of Syria if any serious uprisings broke out, an action which would have the practical effect of relieving him from office--a serious blow to his reputation.
Do any of you feel sorry for Pilate yet? He hadn't exactly won the best post in the empire. For an imperial noble on his way up, this was a good office to hold for a short time, and then move on to something else. To hold this office for a long time was to ask for trouble. Try as he might to enforce imperial decrees, when push came to shove, Pilate always had to give in, because he couldn't risk a real uprising.
As if that weren't bad enough, Pilate had the bad luck to be appointed by Tiberius in A.D. 26. When he left for Judea, he surely felt he'd be there for two or three years and then head back to Rome to recuperate. But it so happened that, in that same year, Tiberius, who had claimed from the very beginning that he was not temperamentally suited to running the empire, unilaterally left Rome and went into a premature retirement on the isle of Capri. He never returned to Rome, effectively leaving the government in limbo for eleven years, until he died in A.D. 37. So, by the traditional dating, by the time Pilate meets Jesus, he has already been ruling Judea for seven years. (Pilate was finally forcibly deposed as a result of an unfortunate military action in Samaria in A.D. 36.)
So, put yourself in Pilate's shoes. His job satisfaction was zero. His only real mandate was to maintain order: justice was an entirely secondary concern. Any misstep could result in his unceremonious ejection from office. How charitable a person do you think he was likely to be?
That is Pilate's role--a sharp contrast to Peter's usual role, but a role just the same. Whether it represented his real character or not is impossible to say: he had been playing this part for seven years, and was surely quite used to it by now.
Well, that's as far as we're going to be able to peer into Pilate's soul for now. Let's see how this situation strikes him, and how he strikes back.
Read John 18:28-31a (that is, through the first sentence in verse 31).
What is Pilate trying to do? (He is trying to shake off this case: like with many bureaucrats, the less he does, the better, so he much prefers to have someone else deal with Jesus.)
Well, Jesus's accusers respond that they can't try Jesus, because he is to be tried on a capital charge, and they don't have the authority to try capital cases. So Pilate reluctantly decides to take the case. Let's see how it goes:
Read John 18:33-35.
What just happened? (Jesus asked a simple question, to determine if Pilate was asking for information or accusation--not that He didn't already know that. Pilate is exasperated by what he surely sees as more Jewish spiritualizing obfuscation.)
I love Pilate's response, "Am I a Jew?" He is sick and tired of dealing with the problems of a religion he neither understands nor cares about, but to which so many people around him are zealously dedicated. He is telling Jesus as forcefully as possible that he couldn't possibly care less about his doctrine, he just wants to get this matter decided.
Jesus then politely answers the question Pilate had asked in the first place:
Read John 18:36-37.
Now, Jesus has given Pilate the information he really wanted: Jesus is not a revolutionary. Pilate surely felt a moment of relief. He confirms his perception by asking again, "Art thou a king then?" Jesus responds that His mission is to preach truth. He closes "Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice."
Does Pilate hear? Listen to his response: "What is truth?" (v. 38). That is the last word between them.
I don't know how you take that comment of Pilate's: I suppose it could be seen as a sarcastic remark from someone who thinks that truth, especially religious truth, just doesn't matter. But I see it as Pilate momentarily being struck by the realization that he's playing a role: here stands before him Someone who seems, in His own way, to have a handle on truth. Truth doesn't generally enter the equation for Pilate, but, deep down, he knows he should care. If I were to direct this scene in a movie, Pilate would ask it in a soft voice, so soft Jesus almost couldn't hear it: struck by Jesus, he wonders to himself, for the first time in a very long time, "what is truth?"
Pilate's role has become a little unstable at this point, but, just by chance, he realizes he may not have to deal with Jesus after all:
Read Luke 23:6-7.
Aha! Jesus is a Galilean--by only a small stretch of the rules, he could get Herod to take the case. So off Jesus goes to Herod (by the way, this is, of course, not the same Herod as in Matt. 2, but his son, Herod Antipas, or Herod the tetrarch, whose kingdom included little more than Galilee).
Famously, Jesus says nothing to Herod, so off he goes, back to Pilate.
Pilate now has another plan. He realizes that Jesus's accusers are only jealous of His enormous popularity. So, he figures, he can go right over their heads, to the people, and use that popularity to get Jesus off the hook. He has a way to satisfy everyone: he can condemn Jesus (what more could the chief priests want?) and then propose that, for the usual Passover amnesty, he be released, thus getting the people what they want. Both camps are satisfied, so Pilate has nothing to worry about. Let's read how his plan works:
Read Mark 15:9-13.
Here's what Pilate hadn't expected: the people have turned against Jesus. Jesus has officially been condemned, and Pilate has to carry out the sentence. Pilate can't believe it: he asks the people what He has done, why He should be killed, but they insist. A mob scene is developing--what's a poor bureaucrat to do? Mark puts it most succinctly:
Read Mark 15:15.
Why did Jesus die, then? Because, guilty or no, Pilate was "willing to content the people."
John gives a more specific reason:
Read John 19:12.
The title "Caesar's friend" was an honorific status of the time. To cease to be Caesar's friend was very dangerous: retraction of friendship was a public announcement, which was usually followed shortly by the death of the former friend. If the chief priests had taken their case to Caesar, given Tiberius's generally unstable state, Pilate would have had much to worry about.
OK, let's step back for a moment. Pilate did his job: he kept order, he dissipated a mob. Jesus's innocence is really beside the point: he was the center of trouble, and his elimination ended the trouble. Case closed. But Pilate seems not to have taken it so easily. At one point, he seems profoundly disturbed to hear that Jesus was called the Son of God. He has played his role--but is there something more he should be doing?
I have focused today on the playing of roles. We saw Peter in his role as disciple and Pilate in his role as jaded imperial upper-level bureaucrat. Both of them at one point question themselves, though, wondering whether their role is really them, or just a mask.
Let me give another example, from a radio show I heard last month. This is a piece on sales from the PRI show This American Life. The third part of this program features a man who unexpectedly became a salesman. He had been a radio reporter, and was moved to sales, selling airtime. When this happened, he said he acquired a different personality, something that wasn't really him, but became very comfortable. It included membership at dinner clubs and the constant offer of false intimacy through discussion of the weather and last night's TV shows. He learned to be energetic and positive all the time, and to ignore what he felt.
However, he says that there were moments that everything suddenly became incongruous and intensely uncomfortable. At one point, he was selling airtime to a chief executive who very much wanted to advertise on his station. Now, the salesman felt that this was probably a poor choice--he didn't think the demographics worked out--but his job was not to turn away, it was to sell. And so he pushed for a sale. As it turned out, the chief executive was doing this on his own initiative: his board was largely against it, and, what's more, they were looking for an excuse to fire him. Additionally, this chief executive was very lonely, and bought into the false intimacy that the salesman offered him. The salesman recounted that one day over lunch, this chief executive had told him about all his insecurities and difficult job situations, confiding in him like a true friend.
What could the salesman do? Well, the two honest decisions, as he recounted, would be to open up and tell the chief executive either that his company really didn't belong on their airtime, or at least that, as a salesman, he was not really a friend. But either action would shatter the persona. In the end, he decided not to do either thing. He soon lost track of this man, but later found he was no longer working there. At this point in the interview, the host of This American Life, Ira Glass, said, "He could have lost his job because of you." The salesman replied, "I know."
We, too, play roles. I come to church every week and teach Sunday School. While I'm here, for all anyone can tell, I'm a good member of the church, doing my best to build the kingdom. But during the week, at school and work, most people couldn't care less that I'm a member of the church, and would rather not hear me talk about it. Most of the time these roles don't collide--but when they do, which do I choose? Which do I decide is the real me?
I decided when I came here to graduate school that I was going to avoid making this choice at the moment of truth--like Peter and Pilate did--by making my church membership, and my view of it, as public as I could from the very beginning. So I manage always to tell my friends that I'm LDS, and even smaller things, like that I teach Sunday School. This has helped me integrate myself. It's also helped them accept and understand me.
Does anyone else have an experience with choosing roles in life? How did you make the choice?
Sources consulted for this lesson include:
Episode 133, act 3, of the radio show This American Life, a Public Radio International show based out of WBEZ Chicago. When you go to this web page, you will see a button labeled "28.8"--press this to hear a Real Audio file of the program (transcripts are not posted on the web). The piece I am talking about starts at about the 29 minute mark; the specific story I tell runs from about the 34 to the 39 minute mark.
Last update: 30 June 1999